


Ribbons

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-08 00:04:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11634759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: No matter how old they get, Emmeryn insists on the ribbons.





	Ribbons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strikinglight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/gifts).



I. Winter  
  
"What do you think of this one, Phila?" Emmeryn asks her, when the sun is high and making the loose strands of her hair glow blinding white. Phila turns. She's holding up a pink satin ribbon, bright in the crisp sunshine. Her blue eyes glimmer with amusement. She's newly-twelve and Phila is fourteen.  
  
Phila absently touches the coarse, brittle strands of hair she's trying to grow out, just long enough to rest on her shoulders. "It's not exactly my style," she admits.  
"Well, I already bought it," Emm shrugs. "So if you don't like it, I'll keep it. Stand still."  
  
Phila stands still. Emmeryn walks up behind her, basket full of marketplace purchases on one arm, and ties Phila's hair into a short, rather silly-looking little tail out from the back of her head. Her knot is tight enough that nothing slips out. Phila's neck feels lighter without her hair on it, though it feels strange and probably looks stranger.  
  
Emm seems happy with her handiwork, though, and combs her magic-scarred fingers through the strands framing Phila's face. "There," she says. "Take a look at yourself."  
  
Phila cranes her neck, trying to see the tail and the pink satin ribbon in the looking-glass on the stand selling hair ribbons. Half the merchant's wares are in Emm's basket and the merchant herself is admiring the hefty sum Emmeryn left on the stand that would most certainly buy her entire stock and possibly the stand itself as well.  
  
"I can't see it," Phila complains.  
  
"Then I suppose you'll just have to trust me," Emm replies, smiling cheekily as she takes Phila's hand and leads her back through the rest of the Ylisstol winter marketplace.

* * *

  
  
II. Spring  
  
The brush cards through Phila's hair, molded into perpetual waves from the braid she keeps it in. Emmeryn insists on brushing it herself when Phila gets the chance to visit, even though Phila does it fine on her own. But it's not so bad, feeling Emmeryn's hands in her hair, fingertips brushing across her scalp.  
  
"You don't really have to grow it out long if you don't want to," Emm says. She's fifteen and trying to be mature.  
  
"I like it," Phila shrugs. "I know I didn't at first, but I like how it looks. It's grown on me."  
  
"Can I keep brushing it, then?" Emmeryn asks.  
  
As if it's even a question. "I wouldn't dare stop you, your Grace," Phila replies. Your Grace is a formality that tingles across her lips, almost like the teasing nicknames that Phila gave her when they were children and their world was at war but beyond anything they knew. Names like sunshine and star-eyes and dewdrop and daisy, silly things that Phila had left behind when she became a knight of Ylisse and when Emmeryn had become her Exalt.  
  
(Perhaps it was hard to believe, but Emmeryn was a little girl, once upon a time— before the phantoms of her parents and their expectations began breathing heavy and cold on the back of her neck, haunted by their ghosts far younger than anyone should ever be.)  
  
Phila can't see it, but she knows Emmeryn is smiling— how, she doesn't quite know. But Emmeryn smiles as she picks out a length of green gingham, light and airy like springtime, and ties Phila's silver-blue braid in a bow.

* * *

  
  
III. Summer  
  
The summer of Emmeryn's twentieth year, Phila is not there. She's beneath the wide expanse of sky stretching over the plains across the Ylisse-Plegia border, walking the wall dotted with the occasional watchtower. Her pegasus nickers beneath her, eager to get her hooves off the ground. Phila soothes her. They'll fly soon enough.  
  
She gets a letter from Emmeryn when the courier catches her along her route. It's folded immaculately, crisp edges and clean parchment and in tiny, perfect script, sealed with a drop of green wax and the dual-wing seal of House Ylisse. Phila opens it and a soft yellow ribbon the color of sunshine falls from the folded page.  
  
_It'll have to do for now,_ Emmeryn's note says. Phila knows what she means.  
  
When she pins up her hair, she ties it with the yellow ribbon. She wears it when she returns to Ylisstol the next fall, skin tougher and reddened in the harsh southern sun. Emmeryn smiles, fondness glittering in her blue eyes, and Phila's heart beats so loud she can practically feel it clanging against her armor.  
  
"It's crooked," Emmeryn tells her first.  
  
"I was expecting a hello," Phila replies.  
  
"Hello," Emmeryn says, eyes sparkling. "Your ribbon is crooked."  
  
"What would you have me do about that, your Grace?" Phila asks.  
  
And Emmeryn taps her chin in thought. "I suppose I'll have to fix it, then. Should you desire it, of course."  
  
"Your Grace," Phila breathes. "Nothing would make me happier."

* * *

  
  
IV. Autumn  
  
They share sips of cider when nobody's looking, when Emmeryn is tucked away in her study with her desk a mile under papers and books. As the Exalt everything requires her attention— and dutifully, she gets to it all. Phila stands by her side, and everyone says it's to keep her safe, but they know better. The real reason is because when Emmeryn gets tired and leans back in her chair, her head comes to rest against Phila, strong as the trees in her family's orchards, and Phila knows it's time to rest.  
  
They make no excuses behind the closed door of Emmeryn's study. On the sofa, beneath thick blankets, Phila presses their foreheads together. Emmeryn's fingers reach behind and undo Phila's braid and bun, carding her fingers through sheets of long hair far too straight to really be Phila's tastes, twirling it round her fingers and undoing all the braiding. She combs her fingers through it, lips close enough that Phila can feel her smile in her breath, and Phila need not open her eyes to know Emmeryn's cheeks are flushed.  
  
Phila's twenty-six, Emmeryn twenty-four. It feels like they will be young forever.  
  
"I have another ribbon for you," Emmeryn tells her. "For your birthday."  
  
"Don't you know it's bad luck to give a birthday gift the day before?" Phila replies.  
  
Emmeryn rolls her eyes. "You know I've never been one to believe in superstition."  
  
"Well, where's the fun in that?" Phila teases, lips stretching into a smile, just brushing against Emmeryn's when she speaks. Emmeryn almost moves to get her gift, the ribbon, but Phila catches her lips before she does. She's gentle enough Emmeryn could pull away without resistance, but Emmeryn doesn't.  
  
Emmeryn chuckles, voice low and rippling across Phila's skin. Her hands come to cup Phila's weather-hardened cheeks. They're so soft, calloused at the fingertip and thumb from holding her pen, and to Phila they are the most beautiful thing she's ever been blessed to feel.  
  
"I suppose I can wait to give you your gift," she murmurs. They don't talk for a very long time after that.  
  
When it comes time to leave, Emmeryn brushes and braids Phila's hair. She winds it around the knot at the back of her head, and ties it off with a bow. The ribbon is deep blue silk with tiny printed flowers.  
  
"I can't see how it looks," Phila complains. "How do I know it isn't crooked?"  
  
Emmeryn smiles, an impish grin she only ever shares with Phila. "I suppose," she says, eyes sparkling in that way that makes Phila fall a little more in love every time, "You'll just have to trust me."

* * *

  
  
V. Winter, again  
  
The sand is hot against Phila's cheek. She hears the dying cries of her pegasus, the sobbing of one of her lieutenants as the Shepherds' healers try in vain to keep her alive. Emmeryn is a speck on the precipiece against the cold desert sky. Phila reaches, reaches in the hope she may be able to reach her.  
  
To some it may be symbolism, the fact that one thought so high above humanity for her goodness is to die from a fall, but all Phila thinks is how terrified she must be, the ground so far below and an axe at her back. The first secret Emm ever told her was that she's not fond of heights.  
  
The blue silk birthday ribbon is tied in her hair when Emmeryn falls from the precipiece, when Phila chokes out something halfway between a scream and a sob, when blood bubbles from her mouth and her lungs collapse, when life slips from her grasp and when there is nothing, nothing but sand and the cold, dry sky.

* * *

  
  
VI. Spring, again  
  
Emmeryn counts out the strokes in batches of four, like it's a folk song Phila made her recruits sing while they ran. One-two-three-four is easy to say, short and bubbling off her tongue that's slower than it used to be, too slow to keep up with how quickly her mind still moves. And it's easy for their niece to bounce her legs along to while she sits on the porch railing, little bare feet dangling far from the ground below but she doesn't fear a thing.  
  
The years since the war have been kind to them; Phila's father would say they deserve it after going through what they have. Phila is just glad to be alive, alive to swing herself onto the porch and kiss Emmeryn's cheek when she tucks her hair behind her ear. Phila's is short again, short as a young boy's, and Emmeryn can't put ribbons in her hair anymore. That's alright, though.  
  
Chrom's daughter is six and a half, hair long and feather-blue like her father's. She's tall and skinny for her age and grows too fast for her parents to keep up with, and when she's out in the south of Ylisse visiting her aunts she wears overalls with patched knees that used to be Phila's.  She always comes home from her adventures on the property with her hair full of twigs and leaves, and Phila's starting to suspect she does it on purpose so she can have Auntie Emm brush it out and put it up into a little tail, tied with one of the many ribbons from her collection.  
  
Phila leans on the porch. Her chest still aches sometimes, but now is not one of those times. Lucina beams with her missing front teeth. She wants to be an explorer and Phila's certain she's well on her way.  
  
"Did you have an adventure today, birdie?" Phila asks.  
  
Lucina stops herself from nodding, because that'd throw Emmeryn off. "Yeah, I did," she says instead. "Did you know there are fairies in the woods around here, Auntie Phila?"  
  
"Oh, of course," Phila replies, like it's obvious. "I've met quite a few."  
  
"I'm gonna meet 'em all," Lucina decides. "Just watch!"  
  
Phila chuckles, then pushes her bangs from her eyes. Emmeryn's nearly finished, and pulls a ribbon from the pocket of her apron. She ties Lucina's hair back, keeping it off the back of her neck.  
  
"All done," she says to her niece. "Go play!"  
  
Lucina doesn't stick around to talk more. She jumps off the porch and tears off into the fields, arms outstretched like she's trying to take flight. Chrom brings her here so she can burn off all that energy she has, since she's still too young for him to begin teaching her to fight, but Emmeryn and Phila don't mind. She's a bright child, loving and enthusiastic. Emmeryn has never been prouder.  
  
"Pink silk," Phila comments, as the light glances off the bright ribbon in Lucina's hair. "I thought that one fell apart."  
  
Emmeryn beams. "It was… a memory worth keeping," she says decidedly.  
  
Phila supposes she can't argue with that. She rests an arm around Emmeryn and Emmeryn slides in like she's meant to fit by Phila's side. Phila is thirty-two and the world is at peace, and she thinks that this time, they really will be young forever.


End file.
